


A Need to do Science

by PARADOX420



Category: Invader Zim, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Genre: Bullying, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Headcanon, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Membrane’s Childhood, Membrane’s Parents suck, Mental Health Issues, Mystery, Other, Past Abuse, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, bad teachers, challenge, real science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:15:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29573055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PARADOX420/pseuds/PARADOX420
Summary: Even as the world around him falls apart, Thomas Membrana (later on Professor Membrane) stops at nothing to pursue his one and only true passion: Doing science.
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There is a little bit of projection of myself onto Membrane for.... personal reasons... but I am making it very clear right now I was never abused. My parents love me, Membrane’s do not love him. Membrane’s abuse is based on pure headcanon that I had before the third quarterly came out and I refuse to let go of it, because I like my headcanon more than the canon. It makes more sense to me personally. Membrane and Jonny being brothers is also pure headcanon and deserves to be explored.
> 
> This is your real last warning.

Thomas Membrana left home when he was thirteen years old. 

Short a few days of turning thirteen, he finally took a few scarce possessions, tied up in a cloth and hung on a stick, exactly like illustrations he saw in many a children’s book, and left on his bike, his only bit of guilt being leaving his younger brother there with his parents. 

But both of them had to make their journey on their own. 

The Membrana family were devout Catholics, Tomas’s parents being leaders in their church, which sat right on the border of Mexico and New Mexico. Respectively, the father Juan Membrana was and the mother Tamatha Membrana (- name forgotten) American, making both Thomas and his brother Johnny half and half. They spoke English and Spanish well enough. 

It was not really race that either parent cared about, it was religion. And that’s why, when he was eight years old and started losing faith, that things started to get really bad. 

Membrana liked science. From the moment he started learning about it in school, he knew he wanted to be a scientist. Even though it was a Catholic school, he became so interested in it, that he went to the library and read as many science books as he could. He realized that some of the things he learned in science contradicted what his church believed. 

“Science is fundamentally flawed” his father would tell him once he pointed out a contradiction, “You’re insane.”

To which the boy retorted, “Religion is fundamentally flawed! You’re insane!”

“You better learn some respect!” His father hit him across the face.

“You really are a doubting Thomas,” his mother uttered loud enough for everyone to hear as Membrane lay on the floor

***

After some time Thomas learned to keep his scientific interests to himself, but he would never give up on science. It ignited a spark in him that could not be tamed. His science grades rose exponentially, along with all his other grades (even in topics he wasn’t naturally good at, like art, he forced himself to do enough to get a good grade) so much so that his teachers considered letting him skip a grade, but observed that he seemed to be behind in social aspects and thought it would be best to keep him with kids his age. 

He would still go to the library and read all manner of scientific writings, even if it was a book for babies with illustrated animals showing the life cycle of a frog. He would, whenever he could, conduct secret experiments with what he had and write his findings in a journal he kept hidden under the loose floor board. At eight years old he decided he was agnostic, meaning he didn’t believe in any deity, but was open to the possibility should evidence be presented. 

His brother, Johnny, was an artist, and a savant in that matter, and did not need to hide his interests from his parents, so long as he painted Catholic imagery. From time to time, Thomas felt a pang of jealously for Thomas, but drowned it out by telling him he was missing out on science. 

One day, out in the woods, Thomas had captured a rabbit, with which he was using as a test subject. His plan was to create a serum using pure coffee beans, and injecting the coffee into it’s bloodstream. His hypothesis was that the caffine would bind to part of the rabbit’s DNA and do away with the need for it to sleep. He found coffee beans in his mother’s kitchen cupboard, and the needle from one of his neighbors. (At that time he thought his neighbor must’ve been some kind of doctor. Years later it clicked that he was actually a herion addict.) All he had to do from that point was extract caffeine from the coffee beans using organic solvent extraction! 

Everything was going fairly well. The rabbit, he had in place my holding its neck, not hard enough to choke it but well enough to keep it in place, he was about to inject the needle- 

“What are you doing?” his brother asked. 

“Johnny!” The distraction caused him to let go and the rabbit fled. “Come on! I was so close to a breakthrough!” 

“Are you still into that science-stuff? You know father doesn’t like it.”

“Just keep it a secret, okay.”

“Okay,” the slightly younger brother said, “I have a secret, too.”

“What is it?”

“Watch this,” Johnny chased and picked up the rabbit, dangling it by it’s neck, “If you really want to have fun with little animals…” Johnny pulled out a pocket knife, “You just do this-” he slashed it right down the middle, “And you watch he blood drip out.”

“Johnny!” this was a side of his brother Membrana had never seen before, “I didn’t want to kill it! What good is it now?”

“Hmmm, maybe mother will make it for dinner.”

Membrana had no appetite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not half-Hispanic but Membrane is and I didn’t want to forget that part of the canon. If I mess up on writing any aspect of being half-Hispanic or Hispanic at all (or the use of Spanish) CORRECT ME AND I WILL FIX IT. ALSO IF YOU’RE CATHOLIC DON’T JUMP ONTO ME PLEASE THERE’S GOOD IN YOUR RELIGION, I PROMISE I DON’T HATE YOUR RELIGION. 
> 
> SO PLEASE DON’T MAKE FALSE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT ME I DON’T HAVE BAD INTENTIONS I JUST WANNA TELL A STORY.


	2. That Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trauma.

But it was that day, the day of his thirteenth birthday, the day he decided to run away, that things were at their worse. It wasn’t berating or beating that made him decide it was the time to leave. It was being laid down on a wooden slab, wrists and ankles secured on with leather straps, and some strange ritual began did he decide it was time to get out of there. 

They were trying to exorcise him.


End file.
